After 10 years, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2" is sending the beloved series out with a bang. Early reviews that trickled in last week pegged the movie as being the best "Harry Potter" installment. Now that the grand finale has hit theaters, "Deathly Hallows: Part 2" has solidified itself as far and away the series' most critically beloved.

Up until now, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" held that title, with a score of 91 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. But "Part 2" has blown that out of the water with a whopping 97 percent fresh and only five dissenters counted at press time.

Read our own "Deathly Hallows, Part 2" review over on the Movies Blog, and if that and the critical praise below get you to the theaters, send us your own reviews!

The Performances

"A decade later Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and his friends, Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint), have become powerful adult wizards, while the actors are now stars. Look closely and you can see the beard inching along Harry's, or rather Mr. Radcliffe's pale chin. Meanwhile Ms. Watson, smoldering in bruising dark lipstick on the cover of the July Vogue, has her own hair and makeup artist, and the director, David Yates, even trains the camera on her generous peekaboo cleavage. Just as startling is the transformation of Mr. Grint who, in one early, anxious scene wears a goatee and a panicked look that together suggest a junior Paul Giamatti. My, how the children have grown — and the movies too." — Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

The Split

"Splitting the final 'Potter' volume into two films was also to the advantage of Part 2, as was the fact that this film deals only with roughly the final third of the book. This enables it to avoid the tiresome teen angst that hampered Part 1 and devote almost all its time to action and confrontation, starting with the film's initial image of the dread Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) pointing the all-powerful Elder Wand to the sky and creating ... the Warner Bros. logo. Once this bit of business is out of the way, the plot kicks in with a vengeance." — Kenneth Turan, The Los Angeles Times

The Conclusion of the Series

"So many good films come to bad ends, but not the tales of Harry Potter. The final episode of Harry's epic journey, part 2 of 'The Deathly Hallows,' is the best possible end for the series that began a decade ago. In contrast to part 1, which was a ponderous exercise in stage-setting and dramatic incipience, this film, directed by David Yates and adapted by Steve Kloves, is a climax worthy of the term. It's a dark and thunderous pageant that sets its bespectacled hero in the midst of vast forces, yet never loses track of who he is — a brave boy, to borrow both parts of Dumbledore's fond phrase, on the way to becoming a wonderful man." — Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal

The Farewell Factor

"Nothing quite like this series has ever been tried before in cinema history, and as I wrote last year, following the central trio of Radcliffe, Grint and Watson through the aging process has itself forced the movies to confront Rowling's central themes, which I take to be 'the painful transition from childhood to adulthood, the loss of parents and loved ones, the first intimations of personal mortality.' For better or worse, Rowling's books and the hit-and-miss movies based on them have reshaped not just the marketplace for fiction and film but the contemporary cultural imagination, re-establishing fantasy as the central narrative mode (arguably for the first time since the Middle Ages)." — Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com

The Final Word

"This movie is impressively staged, the dialogue is given proper weight and not hurried through, there are surprises which, in hindsight, seem fair enough, and 'Harry Potter' now possesses an end that befits the most profitable series in movie history. These films will be around for a long time."

very good ending to a great series of movies! it was exciting, very well directed and complete... It really touches on the fight between good in evil and i had a very emotional atachment to the movie because of that aspect. When you read into the story line it becomes a very insperational film. 9.75/10 by far the best movie of the series

i loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee it was amazing from start to finish the best harry potter so far, it was jus like reading the book only better very detailed nothing was missing, i give it 2 thumbs up, it's a ghreat watch especailly for all the die hard potter fans!!!!!!!! wat else can i say enjoy

greatest movie ever, i love itt 10/10 happy to have seen this Heptalogy , it was beautiful seeing harrys and the gangs children in the end it was awesome thank you jk rowling for blessing us with this movie.You have change many lives by giving us a place in which we can go to ,to laugh and smile

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the seventh and final of the Harry Potter novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The book was released on 21 July 2007 by Bloomsbury Publishing in the United Kingdom, in the United States by Scholastic, and in Canada by Raincoast Books, ending the series that began in 1997 with the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. The novel chronicles the events directly following Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005), and the final confrontation between the wizards Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort.

Released globally in 93 countries, Deathly Hallows broke sales records as the fastest-selling book ever. It sold 15 million copies in the first 24 hours following its release, including more than 11 million in the U.S. and UK alone. The previous record, 9 million in its first day, had been held by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The novel has also been translated into over 120 languages, including Ukrainian, Swedish, and Hindi.

this was the best harry potter ever not a satisfying ending but good way to finish the series romances will be found surprises will surely be in store for you. i personally think that this was a good follow up to part one and great way to some up all the goals from the past movies. everything was brilliant my rating check below

These movies were all good to the books except when this movie came out. it really wasn't what i expected i had a way better scene in my head. When i watched it i was like wait is this that part... or it would confuse me a bit this was off but still good movie

Awesome! I thought that this movie was near perfect, it was a little rushed it seems, but there were a lot of parts that I remember reading from the book. Some parts were exactly how I imagined them. In my opinion the other Harry Potters weren't near a good as this one was. It is very sad that it is all over. I still think she should start making a book about them afterwards. I still thought the books were better then any of movies, but that is with anything. I will always be a Harry fan~!

A spectacular film! I loved every second. Such a epic film to end an amazing run of brilliant films. A must see! It was filled with action, drama, and i shredded the odd tear. This film along with the other Harry Potter's will be remembered for years to come!

First off, let me start by saying that I never read the books, so I'm not going to go about making comparisons between the book and the movie. However, I have watched every film so I've managed to keep up with the series. As a result, I will rate this AS A FILM rather than a book adaptation. As a film, this is fantastic on every front. Splitting the film into two parts was the best thing they could've done. I felt the first part had a couple of pacing issues, but was still pretty great. This one is perfectly paced. I was gripped constantly. A fantastic balance of story and action. Every character was excellent portrayed and I really felt that each one of them had a good level of depth. The script was also fantastic. It never felt cliche, the amount of humour was just right and it's just overall very well written. The action, the story, the character development, the romance, the humour. It's all so perfectly balanced. Nothing ever felt forced. Overall this is a phenomenal film. Every Harry Potter fan should see this, and even if you aren't a fan, watch it because it's a GOOD film (though I would recommend at least watching a couple of the previous films beforehand to have some sort of an idea of what's going on).

The directors did a great job with the film. It had plenty of action and romance. The film was a great ending to the Harry Potter series and it is definitely worth your time. I would highly recommed this film to people, but bring some tissues because the film might make you cry. Again a must see for anyone who likes Harry Potter.